Blakemore reiterates threat to quit

The most powerful medical scientist in Britain today reiterated his threat to quit if ministers failed to back experiments on animals.

Colin Blakemore, head of the Medical Research Council, the biggest public funding body of medical research, spoke out after reports that he was not put forward for a knighthood because of his support for vivisection. Professor Blakemore's public defence of animal experimentation made him too controversial to be included for the honour, according to leaked papers.

Meanwhile MPs have called for an independent inquiry into the "scandal".

Professor Blakemore told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It has nothing to do with whether I particularly deserve an honour - that is neither here nor there.

"The mission statement of the medical research organisation which I now run includes a specific commitment to engaging with the public on issues in medical research.

"How can I now, in the present circumstances, go to MRC scientists and ask them to take the risk of being willing to talk about animal experimentation with this indication that doing so will reduce their standing and their reputation in the eyes of the government?"

Professor Blakemore called on the government to "reaffirm its commitment to the essential use of animals in research and also to the importance of scientist being willing to speak out and engage with the public on controversial issues".

"What this leak, this unfortunate leak, has revealed is that this honours system is not the rigorous system of assessment of merit that we thought it was," he said.

"There should be mechanisms for recognising contribution to society that should be unbiased. But what we see is that this seems to be subject to personal whim, to political expediency, perhaps to blackballing by individuals.

"That is very unfortunate. That, I presume, is why so many people have turned down offers of honours."

The professor said his exclusion showed officials did not want to become embroiled in such controversy.

"Apparently I was marked down as too controversial because of my, as it said, work on vivisection, which I take to be not my actual experimental work," he said.

"Other scientists who work on animals but don't speak about their work have been given honours recently.

"So I take it to mean because I have been willing to engage publicly on that very sensitive but very important issue."

The science minister, Lord Sainsbury, said the leak sent out the "wrong message".

"I want at this point to say on behalf of this government this does not in any way represent government policy," he told the Today programme.

"This is essentially a civil service process and it does not represent government policy, which is quite clear on this.

"It is well known, I think, that government believes it is necessary to do animal experiments within the tough regulatory regime we have.

"It also, I think, is quite clear the government both admires and fully supports those on the frontline who have stood up to animal rights extremists."

He added: "It is not a political process. It is essentially a civil service process and, as I say, it is very regrettable that those comments and views were aired at that meeting."

Professor Blakemore's MP, Liberal Democrat Evan Harris, called for an inquiry into why the honours committee thought recognising the scientist's work would be unacceptable to ministers.

Dr Harris, a Commons science and technology committee member, hit out at the government's lack of support for scientists who publicly defend the use of animals in medical research.

He said: "Following the revelation that senior Whitehall mandarins blocked an honour for Professor Blakemore, it is not enough for the government to wheel out Lord Sainsbury, the science minister, to blame the civil service.

"Such Whitehall committees do not work in isolation from their political masters; it is the fault of ministers that these civil servants were so clearly of the view that due recognition for Professor Blakemore and his colleagues was politically unacceptable and it is now down to ministers to correct that view publicly."

He concluded: "What is so outrageous about this scandal, as Professor Blakemore has said, is that it is not simply the blackballing of scientists who work with animals, but an attack on those scientists who have the courage to stick their heads above the parapet and seek to debate the issue in public."